The Almanac

Accounting drops freight in a bucket. Sales gives it away to close. Accruals and actuals rarely meet.

You carry the liability when it ships. Open inbound lands cheaper than reality.

Matching a freight bill to agreed, signed contractual agreements.

Paying on purpose — audited and approved from one record.

Financial data validation and allocation: who owns the invoice, the liability, and the bucket.

Freight that survives a close — including invoice aging and stale dates on open invoices.

A midsize shipper does not have just a freight problem. Disputes die in email; tolerances become SOP.

The cost of creating and mailing checks — and the IT time behind EDI, portals, and PDFs — is not falling.

PPA is an unintended loan. Cash sits with the vendor until their markup comes back.

A saving you keep is margin. A saving you give away — or cannot defend — is not.

If outbound is Prepaid and inbound is Collect, savings can drop to the bottom line — or vanish in a sloppy price list.

Stopping a bad dollar and a bad decision before either becomes practice.

Hard dollars on Inbound Collect and Outbound Prepaid reductions that hit the P&L.

Discount off a published tariff versus a shipper-centric tariff — choose the rate basis that resets baseline charges.

Carrier “where is my money” calls are a payable design failure.

A tariff and rate basis written from the shipper’s side.

Shipper-centric buying power — not a bigger discount off their book.

Automate contracts including fuel and accessorials.

Freight rates any department can see — not a transportation password.

Shipper-centric contracts. Otherwise you keep paying the fine print.

Fuel surcharge is a carrier profit center. Authoring the schedule puts you in control.

Controlling appropriate NMFC and class is a hidden treasure in negotiating favorable pricing.

One tariff for pricing, carrier service territory, and rules — better than automating networks and pricing apart.

Utilize a carrier to their strengths, like an airline.

Award the shipment by established rules selecting the appropriate carrier.

Prepaid is not free. PPA can be more expensive. Purchasing and transportation disconnect.

Inbound freight is an overlooked purchasing issue that trends on tribal knowledge.

See inbound before it hits the dock, or inventory is a surprise.

Instruct vendors how to ship — then keep score.

Unloading is a plan, not a hope.

Reduce the manual work around a shipment — and the waste it creates.

Route the shipment within the client-mandated carriers to avoid chargebacks.

Put preferences in the routing — and in the subsequent tender.

Late is easier to explain if you knew.

Transit times on a carrier’s sales sheet are not a model.

Fact-based freight reporting from one record.

Use the freight records.

Sharing information across all departments provides a holistic view of the impact of transportation.

Sharing information across all departments provides a holistic view of the impact of transportation.

A system for scoring facilities, vendors, and customers against the rules you actually run.

One picture of compliance, exception, and what the freight is telling you.

Select a system that meets your needs — at an appropriate cost point. A tendering system is not a source of truth.

Keep the decisions that matter. Do not outsource the judgment.

A source of truth starts with invoices, terms, current agreements, and a close — not a purchase.

The knowledge should outlive any one person.